


Always Starting Over

by evergreenstringbean



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Still has mushy feelings in it, no beta we die like they don't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:54:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29600673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evergreenstringbean/pseuds/evergreenstringbean
Summary: Nicolo di Genova has lived many different lives. He's fought many wars, saved many lives, and donned many names.But everything's over, and he's too cold.In which Joe loses his immortality and Nicky struggles to cope.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	Always Starting Over

**Author's Note:**

> The title, inspiration for the fic, and a couple lines are from the musical If/Then. Always Starting Over gave me Kaysanova vibes in the worst way.

He was cold.

No matter how much he tossed and turned or added an obscene amount of blankets to the ever growing pile, Nicky was too cold. The comforters provided a heavy weight more than they did warmth. He knew adding more would do nothing to help, but he couldn’t stop himself from scanning each room of the safehouse for spare sheets and throw blankets to toss onto the bed. 

When he finally settled back onto the mattress and buried himself under the haphazard mountain of material, Nicky still felt so damn cold. He wasn’t surprised by this, but the hollow realization was still enough to make his eyes sting with tears. It’d only been a week, and the idea of carrying on for months, years, _centuries_ , was now beginning to scare the absolute hell out of him. After all, if he couldn’t even fall asleep without the feeling of Joe’s arms around him, a feeling he’ll never experience again, how could he truly go on?

The morning approached at an agonizing pace, but Nicky made no effort to stand. He stayed an empty husk beneath the blankets, hoping to eventually fall asleep and awaken with his love pressing lazy kisses between his shoulder blades.

The others tried their hardest to help him. Andy and Nile tried to entice him with the idea of a delicious breakfast or dinner, though the house carries a faint burning smell as often happened when he wasn’t the one to prepare the meals. Regardless, he had no appetite despite having not eaten since who knows when, and the lack of energy to retreat from the pile overpowered any semblance of will to take care of himself. 

Booker, back from a short-lived exile given circumstances, attempted to offer a drink. He spouted a long speech of loss and how he can relate to Nicky’s anguish, and it was something he wanted to accept at first. The idea of drinking himself stupid, if only for a brief moment, appealed to him in comparison to his current state. But, he was still extremely pissed at Booker for the Merrick incident no matter the circumstances, and he knew that he did not want alcohol to be his downfall as it had become Booker’s. 

Days passed, then weeks. Months. The urge to move was thick in the air with each hushed whisper he caught from the muffled hallway just outside his room. The frustration in Andromache’s voice, the pity flowing in words from Nile and Booker almost made Nicky angry. He wanted to jump up from the bed and stomp out into the hall, proclaim he was alright and they could begin planning their next job. But the exhaustion he felt from the lack of sleep, the fog that lurked in his brain and refused to dissipate, it all proved stronger than his will to join the conversation. 

It was two months in that Quyhn finally spoke to him.

They’d found her again when Booker came back, the woman wordless but calculated with her look and tone. Of course, Nicky hadn’t been present upon their arrival, too busy falling apart in the backyard away from the watchful eye of his family. That was when he still had the energy to feel. But now, under the huddle and his head sandwiched between two pillows that now only smelled like him, the dip in the bed provided no reaction from the man.

“Andromache wishes to go to Australia for a few weeks. Their informant has a job for us.” Her voice wasn’t the pseudo-soothing attempt from Nile or the broken gentle urging from Andy or Booker. No, this one was factual, stuck in truth and no room for feelings. It was different. A good sort of different. A different that had Nicky slowly resurfacing to the top of the pillows but still turned away from the girl. After a long pause, she sighed and rested her hand tentatively on his shoulder. “He loved you, Nicolo. As you loved him. I may have spent the last five hundred years without love, but I know the he would not wish for you to do this to yourself. What would Yusuf say to you right now?”

That was the last straw to finally crack Nicky’s fragile heart in two. The fog in his brain subsided just enough for him to sit upright, looking Quynh in the eye and with silent tears falling. “Do not twist my anguish into guilt.”

“That wasn’t my intention. I just want you to see that falling like this isn’t what he would have wanted for you.”

“Stop!” Nicky didn’t mean to yell, but Quynh’s words were painfully true and his heart was beginning to break in a way he just wasn’t ready for yet. He never would be. He didn’t want to hurt like this. It was too much. And the one person who could help to soothe the pain was the very reason for it in the first place. “I…I’m sorry. I just…”

Quynh wasn’t upset by his temper, no, she was _smiling_. A timid smile, yes, but it was there all the same. “That’s precisely what you need to be doing right now, Nicky. Getting angry. Shouting. Making a victim of the dummy targets outside. Don’t hide your emotions away beyond your curtain of grief.” She sighed, taking his hand just long enough to squeeze it reassuringly and stand from the bed. “We don’t need an answer for Australia until tomorrow, so don’t dwell on it.”

Nicky dwelled on it regardless. He tossed and turned that night, too cold despite the fact he was sweating under the heap of cloth and unable to get a proper amount of sleep for the umpteenth night in a row. He honestly couldn’t remember when he’d last slept longer than an hour or two, not since-

  
_Joe grabs the gun from Nicky, sending him a cocky smile while they all run full force through the door. Bullets fly, screams echo through the room and the splatters of blood stain their clothes in a concoction of a job well done in the making. The enemy are surprisingly talented in their fighting abilities for members of a trafficking ring, but it doesn’t take too long for them all to end up on the floor._

_“Everyone still here?” Andy calls out, and Nicky listens to his and Nile’s affirmative hums._

_But one voice isn’t there. “Joe?” Andy asks, the group looking first to Nicky, then to the man laying on the floor, eyes blown wide as though he were surprised and blood dripping from his mouth. Nicky drops to his knees at Joe’s side and stares intensely at the gunshot wound to his temple. It all almost feels like a flip from the incident at Merrick’s lab, when Nicky had woken up with a deep gasp for air and Joe hovering over him in relief._

_“We don’t have time to wait for him to heal. Think you can get him in the car?”_

_An hour later, they’ve returned to their safehouse and Nicky is laying over his husband, whispering pleas for the man to stop the silly joke and come back to him already._

_“Nicky-”_

_“No. Don’t say it.”_

_“Nicky, I think he’s gone.”_

  
Nicky awoke from his short-lived slumber, reminding himself why he stopped trying to go to sleep in the first place. He was plagued by the same horrifying nightmare each time he tried. 

Only, it was far worse than a nightmare. It was a memory, and that stung far worse than any nightmare possibly could. 

_What would Yusuf say to you right now?_

Quynh’s words rang out in his mind as he poked his head out to stare at the blank, dark ceiling. What would he say? Nicky didn’t think it would be chastising or any anger from his sorrow. Instead, he was sure that the man would wordlessly climb into bed next to him, wrapping him arms tightly around his cold frame and Nicky would finally be warm again. He’d whisper musings of his love and art and all the little things that would make Nicky fall in love over and over again. 

But he wouldn’t have to do any of that, because if Joe were here, Nicky wouldn’t be the way he was in the first place.

~~

“I think you should go to Australia.”

Nicky watched as the group turned their attention to him, finally standing and out of the bed for longer a few short minutes to use the restroom or the rare occasions he could force himself to shower. The four offered a variety of reactions, from relief to joy to surprise to the same look of pity that made his skin crawl. “Are you sure? If you aren’t up to travel, we could-”

The man cut Nile off with a shake of his head. “I think you misunderstood,” he started, crossing his arms over his chest. “I need…some time. Alone. I’ll rejoin you when I can, but for now I…”

“You need your thoughts,” Andy finished, and Nicky nodded in response. The five of them all made a plan for Nicky to take his to-go pack and do what he needed while the others take jobs as they see fit. They would meet again in a year or, if Nicky still wasn’t ready, they would reexamine their situation by then. 

Watching his family drive away was hard, given how much more alone he felt, but he knew all in all that it was the best option. He didn’t want to keep them holed up when they could be doing more good. He knew he also really needed the time away from all the worried glances anytime someone stopped by his bedroom. 

~~

The first four months alone were pure torture.

During the time, Nicky spent his time staring outside the kitchen window or doing as Quynh suggested and carving up the already torn up dummies in the backyard. None of it took the pain away, but it was much better than his blanket prison he’d subjected himself to. But other than that, he didn’t dare do much else. And thus began his routine. Wake up- that is, get out of bed since he still couldn’t convince his mind to relax long enough for sleep- drink coffee, look outside, spend his day in faux violence, look out some more, then go back to bed. 

By month five, his cycle had grown stale. He was sick of stabbing an inanimate object when that proved to do nothing for his wellbeing. He was bored of looking outside into a world where his Yusuf was not there to wax poetics of its beauty. 

He was tired.

Not tired of anything in particular, but perhaps of trying to do the same things over and over in attempt to make the pain dissolve. The frustration of nothing feeling better was the worst of it, he believed. The idea that getting his emotions out could help him to process the grief he felt. He thought back to his days as a priest, when people would come to him for guidance in their weakest moments. All his tender advice felt cheap to him now. He wondered if those he helped had felt the same at the time. 

While deep in thought, Nicky hadn’t realized he’d been staring at the boxes stacked in the corner of the living area, his once hot beverage now ice cold in his hand. He sighed and set the mug on the coffee table before going for the cardboard. The first few boxes were nothing of importance. Old passports, documentations, the odd picture they’d managed to snag behind Andy’s back and hide before she could find. Booker’s old clothes, Andy’s old clothes. After the third box, he figured could be a good way to pass the time and do something productive.

Grabbing a marker and tape from a random drawer, he started combing through each box and carefully sorting them into each person’s own respective section. They all had a bad habit of lumping their stuff in together to save space, but that often ended in things getting lost or broken. They could allow to lose some extra room for the sake of preserved items.

He was about halfway done when he opened a box that knocked the wind out of him. With shaky hands, he reached in and pulled out a stack of papers, flipping through each one and ignoring the way his hands began to accumulate charcoal. Joe’s art. Stacks upon stacks of art, ranging from the outdoors to the members of their family. 

Most of them, however, were of Nicky. Posing as Joe asked, or ones that he assumed had been drawn when he wasn’t paying attention. Ones of him asleep, and ones of him holding his sword gracefully along his shoulder. This was what Nicky had left of him. He had portraits of himself, drawn by the man who he loved most in this world. The man who loved him. 

_What would Yusuf say to you right now?_

~~  
  
“I wonder sometimes what Quynh meant by that.” Nicky sighed from his spot under the tree, talking to the open air of the field. “If she meant what you might say to me if you saw me grieving. Or what you would say knowing I couldn’t continue without you.” Something felt right about speaking to nothing. Nobody to overhear him. And perhaps if he closed his eyes, he could pretend the love of his life was sat against the tree right next to him. “I um…”

He knew what he needed to say. He’d come all the way out to the field in the first place for that very reason. But suddenly the idea of saying it out loud made his heart heavy and his mouth lose all moisture. “You know I’m not the best with things like this…but I love you. I may not be able to write the most beautiful of sonnets to described how deeply I cherish you, but I promise you that I love you, Yusuf.” His throat felt tighter by the statement. “Which is why I need to let you go now.”

Nicky whispered the last part, unable to rely that his voice wouldn’t break. He took a deep breath to ground himself and looked up, seeing the sunlight pour through the cracks of the leaves littering the branches above. “I don’t think I’ll ever come to a point when I’ll stop mourning you. I don’t think I want to…but the grief I feel in this moment weighs me down so much that I struggle to breathe. Quynh asked me what you would say to me, but she never asked how I think you would feel about it. And I think- no, I _know_ \- that you would not want me to be in such anguish.” The sleep deprivation was getting to him. He could tell by the way the feeling of the gentle summer breeze brushing across his face, making his eyelids heavy despite his need to press on.

“You would want me to go on with our family. To continue to do good in the world, help people as we have for all this time. You would ask me to keep my chin up, and live as happy an existence as I could. And I know this, because this is the very same thing I would want for you. Some days I wish it had been me to not wake up, to trade your beautiful life for mine. But that wish quickly dies, as I would never want for you to experience this pain I am going through.”

He was crying, but he paid no attention to it. His voice was slurring slightly as he bobbed in and out of consciousness. It was just so calm, and speaking to his beloved as though he was there without the framework of an empty house was helping more than he could’ve thought. “I’ll carry on for you, my love. I’m through with fighting the plan that fate has set out for us. I’m far too old to do so,” he said, chuckling softly at his statement. “So I’ll start over again. Somehow. I’m not sure how I’ll do it, but I will.” He took another shaky breath, this time keeping his eyes closed as not to fight with his fatigue.

“Our life is over, habibi. But I’ll make this last vow to you. I will start over, again and again, for as long as it takes until I am allowed to return to your embrace.” Nicky felt the tears begin to dry on his face thanks to the breeze, the post-cry urge to fall asleep beginning to pull him under.

“I will live for you.”

  
_“Nicolo.”_

_Nicky feels a hand on his cheek, soft and familiar as he slowly opens his eyes. “Yusuf.”_

_The man’s face is gentle, offering a small smile as they pull each other close. Nicky can’t take his face away from the crook of Joe’s neck. Joe holds him tight and Nicky is finally warm again after being so cold for as long as he had._

_They eventually pull away and Nicky feels Joe brush his thumb under his eye, wiping the tears away before they can fall down his face. “Will you be alright, my love?” he asks, voice hesitant for the answer._

_After a second of pondering, Nicky lets out a relieved smile with the knowledge of a real answer. “I think so. Not now, but I may in the future.” The future. A future without Joe._

_“Good,” Joe says in response, grinning and taking Nicky’s face into his hands. “I love you with all my heart, my Nicolo. Your peace will grant me happiness no matter where we are.”_

_That seems to break the weight on Nicky’s shoulder, and he can finally breathe. “I love you so much, my Yusuf.” He wants to say more. So much more of how unfair the promptness of his mortality was and how tragic it had been that the two had never gotten to properly say goodbye, but he doesn’t quite feel the need to say it. Something tells him Joe understands it all._

_“We’ll meet again, hayati. As you said, we’re meant to find each other.”_

_“It’s like destiny,” Nicky finishes breathlessly, and then Joe’s lips are on his and he feels warmer than he’s felt in such a long time._

Nicky blinked a few times before fully opening his eyes trying to adjust to the bright sun now sinking over the hill. By the looks of it, he’d been asleep for a couple hours. His stomach growled from the need for food and his back was uncomfortable from the bark poking him. But for once, he was freed from the mental fog he’d been lurking in, and his walk back home was much easier to achieve.

Once he’d arrived and eaten, he plopped onto the couch with the pile of Joe’s sketches, now flipping through them with a clear mindset and a optimistic grin. When he was done, he stood up, pressed a gentle kiss to the paper his husband had once spent hours holding, and set them into the box marked ‘Joe’. Grabbing his phone from the coffee table, he dialed a number and held it to his ear.

“Nicky? Is everything alright?” The serious tone laced with worry cut through after the first ring and Nicky almost laughed at the speed with with Andy had answered.

“Everything’s okay.” He wanted to say he was okay, but that wasn’t absolutely true yet. “I just wanted to see if we could meet somewhere.”

The line was quiet for a a few seconds, followed by, “Are you sure you’re ready?”

He didn’t really have to think about it. Being alone wasn’t going to do much more than he’d been able to get, but being with his family, reminding himself he still had others to rely on, to care for, to love, that was the only way he could really begin again. 

“I’m ready to try.”

It felt like a promise. A promise to the others, or maybe to himself. But above all, it was a promise to Joe. That Nicky would _try_.

And they both knew that was what would count centuries down the line when Nicky breaks his arm in a hand-to-hand training session and doesn’t heal.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, not beta read. So there's most likely typos and other issues but I got so excited to post so here!
> 
> Come yell at me on Tumblr: @evergreenstringbean


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